The sound is excellent and it now gains from the immensely improved surfaces which the companies produce, absolutely silent in fact. A Song of Summer is fairly well known; but the North Country Sketches have been lacking in the catalogue since the Beecham version was deleted (the Groves was also deleted shortly after the Beecham). These are Delius at his more austere but, like Life's Dance, they never lack the 'Delius touch' for long. Performances are most sympathetic

Sara Groves has never been one to stray away from showing her emotions in her music. Sure, she’s had a few radio hits over the years but her bread and butter is when she slows things down and bearing her soul in the lyrics. Enter 2015 and Floodplain and that’s exactly what we have with Groves’ latest offering. This being her eighth studio record, Groves knows exactly what works for her and the material on Floodplain does just that- it works and it works almost to perfection.

The new box contains no fewer than three different Williams recordings of that most popular of all guitar works, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez – from 1964 with the Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, from 1974 with Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra, and from 1983 with Frémaux and the Philharmonia Orchestra – plus a performance of its much-loved Adagio in Williams’s celebrated 1993 “Seville Concert”.

Rebelling against the increasingly formulaic operas of the time, Christoph Willibald Gluck's "reformist" opera Alceste (1767) was a successful attempt to return to a purer form of musical drama. It is highly appropriate that this 1999 production of the revised 1776 Paris version should be conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, the same forces responsible for many fine Bach performances equally emphasizing character and text. In setting the tragic story of the profound love between Queen Alceste and her husband King Admète, Gluck provided a score of austere, rending beauty… By –Gary S. Dalkin

EMI Classics presents a magnificent collection that celebrates the life and career of English composer Gustav Holst. Containing an outside selection of Holst s greatest works including his most famous orchestral suite The Planets, the rare The Perfect Fool, as well as the Walt Whitman inspired Ode to Death. This 6-CD collector s edition provides a chance for all classical music aficionados to listen and experience his timeless compositions

Charles & Eddie's follow-up to their international hit Duophonic is much like its predecessor, featuring a set of polished, melodic pop/rock material with a slight hint of dance-pop, best illustrated by the single "Jealousy."

At a time when urban radio was obsessed with the hip-hop-minded new jack swing of Bell Biv DeVoe, Bobby Brown, and Guy (among others), Charles & Eddie turned to pre-1980 African-American music for inspiration. The male vocal duo's first album, Duophonic, owes a major debt to the classic Northern soul of the '60s and '70s...